Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a method and system for creating posters, and more particularly to a method and system for designing and printing fantasy sports draft board posters.
Related Art
Current design and printing systems are known to enlarge photographs and print them as posters using a global network of computers (the “internet”). There are numerous poster producer websites that end users can access through the internet using a standard browser application for designing and printing posters. The end users can upload image files to the poster producers through the browser application and manipulate the image files using a graphic design program that is resident on the poster producer's host computer system. In some systems, such as in U.S. Pat. No. 6,911,992, the host system provides a poster generation website interface to users' computer browsers that allow the users to select a poster template, populate the template with images to be incorporated into the poster, manipulate the images within copy holes of the poster, and request a preview image of at least part of the poster. According to the particular teachings of the '992 patent, the host system generates a preview image that is provided to the user's computer browser and a determination is made whether the image file has a resolution that satisfies a predetermined resolution threshold. Additionally, the host system provides to the user's computer browser a poster representation in the form of a low resolution image of the poster template which allows the user to visualize a representation of the poster as the user manipulates the images using the computer browser that is accessing the graphic design program on the host system.
The determination whether the image file has a resolution that satisfies a predetermined resolution threshold is a critical aspect of the invention disclosed by the '992 patent. Additionally, the use of a low resolution image as the poster representation instead of the full resolution that is required to satisfy the predetermined resolution threshold is also a critical feature of the invention because most users of such a poster designing and printing system would not have the bandwidth and internet speeds necessary for the users' computers to edit or otherwise manipulate the images in their full resolution. The use of a low resolution image for the entire image, including the template features as well as the user's uploaded images, is an inefficient system because the template features are within the control of the host system and would certainly satisfy the predetermined resolution threshold. In fact, in the particular example disclosed by the '992 patent, the preview image selected by the wire frame encompasses a portion of the host system's template image and a portion of the user's uploaded image. If there is to be a determination of the resolution threshold requirement, a more efficient system would only check the images that are being uploaded.
It would be beneficial to improve the efficiency of internet-centric systems such as disclosed in the '992 patent so that the bandwidth available to users' computers over their respective networks can be optimized. According to U.S. Pat. No. 9,077,823, there are innovative solutions for saving bandwidth while editing images and image products online to make the entire experience more efficient and easier for users practicing the invention. However, the solutions disclosed and suggested by the '823 patent also fail to consider graphic design systems in which the host system provides one or more template images at satisfactory resolutions and users are able to upload images and enter text to merge with the template images. These systems must also provide a mechanism for formatting the uploaded images or entered text to create a desired final poster.
A significant deficiency of current poster generating systems, is the recommendation of a poster size to meet the resolution requirements of the image and other characteristics of the poster that a user has inputted into the system. Most systems allow a user to choose the poster size, and then adjust the image resolution accordingly. However, such systems may create an unsatisfactory product because a preview of the product displayed on a display device is an insufficient representation of the actual product. For example, the Vistaprint® design-to-print system allows a user to choose the orientation, poster size, materials, and template, but as a user continues to add further elements, the system does not automatically change the size of the poster or even recommend that the user modify the size of the poster. The result could be that the user receives a final product that may be an inappropriate size and/or visually unflattering.
Other systems that are commonly used for creating a customizable fantasy draft experience are electronic draft board systems, such as those provided by the FanDraft service and the PrimeTimeDraft service. These systems are available over the internet to provide a customizable media experience within a single location and to connect remote users through the platforms. These systems do not provide an actively updated image that allows a user to view their draft board in real time as the user inputs their design information. As the draft boards are created, a series of information is requested from the users, such as team names, owner names, team logos, team images, and even team songs. The draft board can be viewed after the information is input into the system. These enter-first-review-later systems may be satisfactory for electronic draft boards which only need to meet aspect ratio requirements of monitor screens or projectors, but such systems are unacceptable for designing draft boards that are to be printed with a variety of different sizes and different aspect ratios because the known systems have no reason to evaluate changes in draft board sizes that may be beneficial based on different sizes of the cells in the draft board matrix as well changes in the numbers of teams and rounds in the draft which respectively define the rows and columns in the matrix. Even if current systems that are used for designing electronic draft boards were to offer different aspect ratios, changes in the absolute size or aspect ratio may require users to either restart the design process or continue the edit-first-review-later process and resubmit the selections in an iterative basis until a desired draft board layout is reached.
Electronic draft board systems do not have any need to resize the league name and other information in the header because they are not bound to a specific space within which printed text must be fit. Instead, electronic draft board systems can have scrolling headers, dropdown menus, popup windows, and even countdown timers. Due to these electronic-centric functions, these purely electronic draft boards unsatisfactory for creating a print-ready draft board poster. Merely printing a screenshot of an electronic draft board would not be an adequate printed draft board because of the limited electronic formatting options. Additionally, even if the information entered for the electronic draft board were mapped into a print-version of the draft board, significant redesign of the draft board would be necessary to make an acceptable print-version of the draft board.
Accordingly, even with the advancements in the field of online print-ready design programs and electronic draft board design programs that may run on individual computers, traditional servers, and cloud-based servers, there remain inefficiencies in the design of specially formatted posters which allow for variable sizes and numbers of matrix elements and which also allow for a header that can include text and graphics, such as found in draft boards. As users increasingly move more of their work to mobile computer systems, including tablets and smart-phones and want to access print-ready design program systems through these mobile devices, the improved efficiencies and ease of use of the host systems will become even more important.